Note from Diana’s friend Candace: Can this story be told in a day, by a blog, by an article in a newspaper or magazine? I think not. Perhaps the universe was created in an instant, in a big bang, but it’s taken us fallible humans ever since to work out what it means to live life. That story is ongoing. And so will be this blog, as Diana Nyad’s extreme dreaming unfolds, revealing itself over the coming days and weeks and no doubt months. It’s ongoing, and so is Diana’s life, I am so thankful to be able to say.

And just so you know, she’s already begun to do what she set out to do originally, “live life to its fullest.” For her over the hours since she came out of the water, that has meant what? Sleeping? Resting? Eating all those things she denied herself while in training? Oh no, not our Diana. She’d been promising the party for her crew (and for the friends scheduled to arrive in the middle for the celebration at the end, who hopped on a plane even after they heard it was over) and a party was what they were going to get. In fact, two already—the first on the evening of the day her swim dream ended—the second, last night. Thus the delay in bringing you into it, but believe me, though her for-now substitute blogger (me) has had to take a day or two to catch her breath, Diana herself has been speaking to you since her head came out of the water—through the CNN cameras, over phone interviews, in press conferences. Some of what she has to say will come soon today in the next blog, part of that press conference, word for word.

And then another blog later on tonight after that. And then the next day and the next. Diana lives large, and so have many of us had an opportunity to do through being a part of her dream, as well as otherwise. But be prepared. If this story has a beginning, a middle, and an end, you’ll have to figure it out for yourself because it sure ain’t agonna come that way to you from here. It’s going to come in moments, in snapshots, from various angles and perspectives, unfolding. It will come together somehow, like the grandma’s quilt that Diana Nyad threw off before jumping into the water.

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– © Candace Lyle Hogan 8-11-11, 11 a.m.